Yale Gallery Makes ‘Thrilling’ Discovery of Velazquez Painting

``The Education of the Virgin,'' newly attributed to Spanish master Diego Velazquez. Yale University found the painting in an art gallery storage facility and plans to restore the work, dating back to 1617-1618. Source: Yale University via Bloomberg

July 2 (Bloomberg) -- Yale University, which saw its
investments fall about 25 percent in the year ending in June
2009 as the economy tanked, happened upon an appreciating asset
in a storage room underneath its art gallery: an oil painting it
now attributes to 17th-century Spanish master Diego Velazquez.

“This is thrilling for us,” said Laurence Kanter, curator
of European art at the Yale University Art Gallery, in a
telephone interview. “This is one of the most important
discoveries in the old-master field in decades.”

The unsigned painting, “The Education of the Virgin,” was
originally credited to an unknown 17th-century Seville artist.
Depicting the Virgin Mary and her mother, it was a gift in 1925
from two wealthy Yale alumni, Henry Hotchkiss Townshend and his
brother, Raynham Townshend.

In 2002, when the gallery was preparing for renovation and
paintings were transferred to off-site storage, Kanter said the
“Virgin” painting caught his eye for being of very high
quality.

“But I had no idea what it was,” he added.

John Marciari, a Yale-educated art historian working for
Kanter, said he too was struck by the long brush strokes,
gesturing hands and sophisticated naturalism.

Early Velazquez

“One day it hit me,” he said. “It couldn’t have been
more obvious. That’s early Velazquez.”

Marciari, in his early 30s at the time, said he spent weeks
trying to convince himself otherwise before he told anyone of
his theory. Finally, he sent an image via e-mail to a Velazquez
scholar he knew, Salvador Salort-Pons. There was a reply within
a minute.

“I am trembling,” Salort-Pons wrote.

Years of academic and technical research followed.

“Technical study can disprove an attribution, but it can’t
prove it,” said Marciari, who today is curator of European Art
at the San Diego Museum of Art. “We did find the pigments and
the canvas are all consistent with what Velazquez used when he was
in Seville in the first years of his career.”

The painting, dated 1617, has been damaged by water.
Marciari speculates the culprit was the flood of 1626 in
Seville. Kanter said it will be ready for public viewing in
about two years.

As for its market value, paintings by the artist seldom
publicly change hands. In July 2007, a Velazquez sold at
Sotheby’s in London for about $17 million. Marciari said he
doesn’t know how many millions “The Education” would command at
auction. And that day will not come, he added.

“The painting will be forever at Yale,” Kanter said.

The discovery has been front-page news in Europe, after
Marciari wrote about the find in a Spanish art magazine.

“I’m now a celebrity in Spain,” said Marciari, 38, with a
laugh. “I could eat out in Spain anywhere I want to tonight.”